


as you held onto me

by livethekind



Category: Homestuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livethekind/pseuds/livethekind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most of the time, you’re someone who doesn’t put stock in feelings. But when you scale the three flights of stairs to her apartment and knock on the door, you can’t keep words inside any more. (Four scenes - SBURB, Post-SBURB, and Crapsack Timeline.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	as you held onto me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karijou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karijou/gifts).



> Still a little unsure at the pacing, but consider it a piece that was written in Computer Science class while talking about hashmap and imagining away the future. Because it was.
> 
> I hope you enjoy something similar, though not quite the same, as what you gave me. Hope you like it, and have a ridiculously happy birthday!

**one.**   
Thirteen.

You are Dave Strider, and you are in twelve places at once.

You know what you want - it’s always been clear to you, from the moment someone gave you a job to do and a title to fulfill. You want to beat the game at its own system, and refuse to let it steal your friends away. The title you’ve been given is Knight - and what is a Knight, but a person who saves others in need? Though you’ve never thought of yourself as particularly heroic, you don’t really mind it. It’s thankless work, and someone has to do it. No God Tier, no thank yous from anyone that knows of your mission. You don’t really care ( _you do, you just hate to admit it_ ), and that’s why you suppose you were chosen for the role. For someone else, one of your other friends, this would kill them. As someone who has now experienced their own death more than once, you no longer have an issue with it. That’s why you’ve become twelve pieces of the whole; you can’t stop splitting your timeline, or your friends will cease to exist.

That would kill all of you, in more ways than one.

They’re all best friends to you. John, Rose, and Jade -- all of them mean more to you than you would ever admit, so you just don’t say anything. Keep it inside, keep it cool.

 _She pesters you and makes you smile -- hi dave!!! :D Her smiley faces are goddamn infectious, and you smile along with them, though you would never admit it. The pictures she sends you are beautiful: long, dark hair and glasses, eyes a bright green. You don’t look at girls all that often, but something about Jade Harley makes you take notice. She’s cute, and quirky -- and her stories about Prospit, the dream world, make you remember your own dreams, violet and dark and shadows. Sometimes, you think she’s trying to do some sort of magic shit on you. Other times, she just seems plain weird. Most of the time though, she’s sunshine and green earth, smiling and telling you she loves you, loves your work, loves your music._

 _You lock the picture files on your computer and don’t tell Bro the password._

Best friends forever, you think to yourself. Sometimes, you are the Dave that gets to live on, and other times you’re not. But you’d die a million times if it meant that your three best friends could keep on living, keep surviving in a game that was not built for their survival.

Eleven die.

You’re left alone, but it’s all fine. The three who matter most have emerged victorious, and you intend to keep it that way. They’re your best friends after all, and a world without them would be a lame, silent place. A boring place, sad and alone. You’d rather have them stay alive, for all of your benefits.

 **two.**   
Seventeen.

You are Dave, sometimes Strider if you’re being called by one of the boys who calls you a friend but that you call an annoyance, acquaintance, same difference. You are that kid with the sunglasses, the cool kid, the mysterious boy when you listen to the whispers in the hallway. Girls in sundresses, long blonde hair and brown eyes, waltz up to you and ask for your name, but you rarely ever reply. So you have grown a legend in the halls of your high school, the boy who never speaks. The boy who charmed his teachers into letting him wear sunglasses in class. The boy who was attractive, tall but decently filled out, muscular, hiding a dark side. The whispers don’t bother you that much - you kind of like the aura you’ve built for yourself - but the girls do.

You don’t like them.

Most of the girls who approach you are beautiful. You aren’t cold enough that you deny yourself any appreciation of beauty, and some of these girls really could stop a man dead in his tracks with one coy glance. Bro, for all his fucking ninja nonsense, taught you how to treat a woman. And so you’re cool but nothing like rude when you turn them all down. They’re usually upset - and you hate seeing girls cry, you’ve always hated it - so you walk away quickly, head down and hands in your pockets. They never hold it against you. Somehow, they always seem to think it’s a deficiency on _their_ parts, but never on yours. You are the god of this school, and nothing can stop you from turning down every single girl if you really feel like it.

The prettiest girl in school is taken, anyway.

She’s definitely not blonde, and her hair isn’t impossibly straight or shoulder-length. It gets everywhere - you sit behind her in Physics, and long black hair gets all over your desk whenever she sits down. The bad thing is, she doesn’t notice when you move it, and attempt to get her to look at you. The good thing is, one day she might. You never tell Jade how ridiculous her hair is - she would give you that _look_ , and you would feel like suddenly, you’ve kicked a million puppies and torn apart a million furrsona posters. All because this girl, with the buckteeth and huge glasses, gave you a face so sad that you didn’t think your heart could take it.

Usually, when that happens, you blow it off. It hurts more than you let on, because you hate when she’s unhappy. Jade Harley is the girl who deserves nothing but the best, and you want to give it to her. But you can’t. You’re no scientist, no physics prize-winner or athlete or classical musician. You’re just her best friend, and you suppose that can count as enough.

It will have to, since she’s dating the boy who beat her out in the science fair. You don’t know his name - you didn’t bother wanting to learn it - but he’s short, kind of dorky, zits everywhere. Definitely not her type ( _how long ago you thought of what her type should be, you don’t want to admit_ ). But she seems to adore him, or at least put up with him. She hasn’t been sitting with you lately, instead preferring to sit with his friends, their talk about particles and spontaneous combustion reaching your ears from across the cafeteria. She lets him walk her home, and even lets him take her on dates. Jade never let any boy do that before.

You loathe to admit you’re jealous.

But she’s still the only girl for you, you _think_ \- you’re not really sure, and what good is waiting for a girl who will never even look at you like that? Sometimes, you begin to lose faith. She still smiles at you, but there’s barely even a conversation on some days. But then, there are other days. Better ones.

“Dave!”

With a burst of laughter, she’s clinging to your arm as you walk down the street, eyes on you and waiting for your reaction. You smirk, slightly - you want to grin, but that would just make you look like a total loser - and pull her close.

“Sup, Harley? Not hanging out with your boy toy? Man, he must be pining for you.” _I’m pining for you, no fuck -- that’s dumb_

She grimaces. “We broke up. He was nice, but...he kept saying girls shouldn’t be scientists, and I thought that was really silly! So I...dumped him, I guess.” You shouldn’t be happy, but you are -- irresponsibly so. The guy was a douche and you knew it. Reality tells you that you should keep your mouth shut, but you can’t help it.

“Jade.”

“Yeah?”

“Congrats.”

 **three.**   
Nineteen.

You are Odysseus, and she is your Penelope. At least, that’s what Rose is trying to convince you of, sitting at one of the fancy cafes she has taken up lately. The people walking by on the sidewalk look inside curiously, watching the girl with the piercing violet eyes and the boy in the sunglasses before quickly going on their way. Rose isn’t one to notice when people stare - or if she does, she simply puts it off as that person’s natural curiosity for the unusual. You have a hard time forgetting the strangers are there, and time is all you’re made of these days. You spend most of it on the road, driving between Washington and New York and sometimes Massachusetts too. You don’t visit Jade as often as you’d like, especially after she told you she got another boyfriend.

“How long are you planning on hiding your insatiable desire for your best friend, Dave?” The oddly verbose question snaps you out of your thinking and back into reality, where your sister sits across from you, arms folded. She looks particularly chic today, dressed in a beige skirt and lavender blouse that makes her look even slimmer, if that’s possible. Rose is, in your opinion, already kind of a twig.

“What the fuck are you even talking about, Lalonde? You’re being even more vague than usual. Trying to set a new record?” She shakes her head. You both know that you understand her more than you let on, but you’d never admit it. Why should you? She will gloat over being right, and you’ll simply think of more witty retorts to prove her wrong.

“If you wait twenty-one years, _you’ll_ be the one setting the record. Even Odysseus didn’t wait that long--”

“Odysseus?”

“Yes, Strider. Surely in those few years you went to school, something seeped into your mind and stayed there. Think of the Odyssey, a Greek classic? You are forcing her to wait, and she’s suffering. She loves you, Dave. Perhaps more than you know.”

Loves you? No. Rose has got to be joking - she doesn’t love you, she’s got a boyfriend and she’s happy with him and has her classes, her flowers and books. She doesn’t need a derelict vagrant in her life any more than she needs a third leg.

“She just got a boyfriend a week ago.”

“And she tired of him just as quickly; they only went out for three days before she inevitably shooed him from her apartment and told him not to come back. Apparently, he insulted her decorative taste, as well as her fashion sense. In addition, he made several lewd comments about you.”

“Why me?”

“You’re the only person she talks about with some consistency.” Despite the serious conversation, Rose stirs her coffee idly, looking at the black drink before her rather than you. You’re not sure what she’s thinking of, but she’s in one of her moods. Probably best to let her ramble at you than to try and interfere. “Apparently, he called you some rather...distasteful things. And then accused her of being a whore.”

“The fuck?” You can’t help it; hearing anyone talk about Jade that way pisses you off. You don’t mean to, but before you can stop yourself you slam your hand down on the table, causing more than a few startled glances. Rose doesn’t look up from her coffee. Apparently she was expecting that. “Look, she’s weird, and sure her room’s a little freaky with all the furries everywhere, but she’s not...” you can’t bring yourself to say it. “I don’t think she’s ever made out with anyone, let alone slept around. What kind of fucker would say that?”

It’s probably the most discourse you’ve given on Jade since you realized how beautiful she was. And it’s only then, stewing in silence and staring at the drink you find you hate, that you realize you want _her_. Some guy who calls her names and fucks with her isn’t who she deserves. He wouldn’t appreciate her genius, the fact that she blazed through two years of coursework in the time it took John to do one. The fact that she laughs when she’s hurt because she doesn’t want you to worry, or that she can hit a target dead-on with a rifle at the farthest limit of her weapon’s range.

“So you do like her,” Rose murmurs. Finally, after some silence, she looks up from her drink, fixes you with a look that says either you’re in deep shit or there’s something she needs you to do for her. “Don’t make her settle. You need to tell her.”

And when you leave town that night, on the road to Massachusetts, you know she’s right.

  
~~four~~   
  
**zero.**

You are no one. Formerly Davesprite - game construct, _not the real Dave_ \- and somewhere, in a foreign time and place, you were Dave. Just Dave, sometimes Strider and occasionally both names fit together. Until your world crumbled around you, you had no idea that your friends were as important to you as they are now. Or as they were.

They no longer exist.

John died -- the idiot, you still think to yourself. And then you kick yourself harder, because wasn’t it your fault? You let him fly off on that stupid rocket pack without a care in the world, destroying himself at the hands of the seventh gate and flinging your session into disaster. Rose had pestered you, asking you what to do. You didn’t know. You never knew, and really, it was that moment that made you wonder what the fuck you were doing in the game at all. What good was a knight if they couldn’t save those left behind?

 _You couldn’t save her._

No one knew what happened to Jade. Rose still believes - _believed, you correct yourself_ \- that Jade never died, that she was somewhere. That there was still hope. But without an Heir, there was no point to the game any more. And besides, you knew she was gone. Jade’s messages had stopped as abruptly as John’s, and though you couldn’t see her, you knew what that meant. She was gone. The meteor had taken her from you, and you couldn’t get her back. Not unless you changed the future, and you sure as hell were going to try.

 _i love you, dave :)_

With those four words, your life had changed. They were the last words you ever got before she disappeared. You knew you had lost her. And at that moment, you would’ve given anything to get her back. ( _what the fuck do you mean, come back jade, where did you go, i need you_ ) Because maybe, some time in those four months you spent with Rose, aimlessly searching throughout the Incipisphere for some sort of quest or sign, you found out something. Maybe you realized you loved her. That smile, the kind words and continual praise made you feel good, made you realize that damn, that girl was intelligent. And kind, and optimistic, and everything you weren’t. And she loved you anyway - the boy with the ironic barrier, the boy who hid everything and believed he was no better than anyone else. You didn’t deserve that type of love, but she did.

She gave everything for you, and you fucked it up.

Going back in time was a no-brainer -- if you wanted her back, you’d have to fight for it. But of course, paradox space is nothing if not ruthless. You were destined to die, and you knew it. So you never talked to her - you watched Dave chat with her countless times, peering over his shoulder when he wasn’t paying attention. He was always engrossed, anyway. Never really noticed how much you wanted to talk to her. But what do you say to a girl who you love, a girl who’s not really yours? She would never like you, fucking feathery asshole that you were. Orange and all angles, hollow on the inside, automatic. No longer Dave, but something different.

 _sup jade just wanted to let you know that youre a lot better when youre living i love you_

No, that wouldn’t really cut it. It was better off saying nothing, keeping the feelings on the inside. You had let her die once, and now she was gone from your hands. You just hoped that yourself - the _alpha Dave_ , the Dave that was meant to live and keep on living - could figure it out one day.

It took a meteor and four words you could never respond to for you to get it through your thick skull.

What would it take him?

 **four.**   
Twenty-One.

Your name is Dave Fucking Strider, and you have finally realized that the only person in the world for you is a girl in Massachusetts who is waiting for your arrival.

You’re late - you’re pretty much always late, traffic taking longer than anticipated - and you hate that you’re always behind schedule. Not that you’re a schedule person. Really, you’re more of a...time person. A meticulous as fuck time person who makes every second count in your life if you can. Some people have laughed at you, but Jade Harley makes you feel alive when you tell her about it. She listens, and she _knows_ what it’s like to be haunted by a game that very nearly took your life, her life, and everyone else’s too. Jade understands that you’re not perfect, and loves you anyway. You’re not really sure why. You don’t deserve it - you’ve been an evasive prick for years, and sometimes you wonder why she puts up with you. But there she is, smiles and sunshine, the same never ending feeling pouring out of her. You’ve never gotten over how breathtaking she can be when at her very finest.

And now, pulling your beat up pickup truck into her apartment parking lot, you want her in your arms again. You’re not the best of boyfriends - hey, who would be? - but you try, and you try hard enough that you’re sure she knows how much you love her. Though sometimes, actions can’t make up for words. Most of the time, you’re someone who doesn’t put stock in feelings. But when you scale the three flights of stairs to her apartment and knock on the door, you can’t keep words inside any more.

She opens the door.

“Dave!” After all these years, the call of your name is still the same as ever. And she flings herself at you, her face colliding with your chest. You hug her back, happy to be with her again. You know you’ll have to leave, eventually. But you don’t let that stop you from hugging her as hard as you can, planting a kiss on her forehead when she finally looks up at you.

“How are you? I’ve missed you so much!”

She’s still your best friend, but she’s also something more. She’s your reason, you think, the person who you know will always be there for you. The reason that you visited was to tell her something you’ve waited too long to say. You should’ve thought of it years ago - maybe back in SBURB, maybe high school, you can’t really say. But as you hold her in your arms and look down at her, you find it hard to put into action.

\--

Later, when the lights are off, both of you tangled beneath the sheets of her bed, looking at each other in the darkness, you find the words. She smiles - first softly, then a full blown grin, lighting up her eyes even in the semi-darkness. Her hand finds yours, and she pulls it close to her chest, looking at your shades with all the seriousness she could ever really muster.

“I already knew that, Dave. I love you too.”


End file.
